1. Technical Field
Various embodiments generally relate to a semiconductor device, and more particularly, to a semiconductor device for controlling a prefetch operation for a memory device.
2. Related Art
Until a read request for a memory device is completed, a processor may wait for a response from the memory device. Thus, rapidly processing a read request may improve the performance of a system.
One way to rapidly process a read request is to use a prefetch method which uses previously read data from an address of a memory device, which is expected to be requested. However, when the address prediction is not accurately performed, unnecessary prefetch operations may be increased thereby reducing the performance of the system.
The conventional prefetch method may not accurately predict a prefetch address because of, for example, varying patterns of the addresses associated with the read requests of the memory devices. Further complicating the process of a processor are prefetch operations that reference a program counter and an address of the memory device that must be transmitted to a memory controller.